


All Donated Blood

by Florentium



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Forehead Touching, Hand Jobs, M/M, Needles, Scarification, Sexual Content, blood transfusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4532160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florentium/pseuds/Florentium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After departing from the Citadel, Max returns to the wreckage of the war rig to scavenge for supplies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Donated Blood

The raider's mountain pass is charred and blackened by the crash. The wreckage fires are days old by now, but some still burn. Bodies, engines, soaked in guzzoline and scorched in a long trail of carnage leading east. The carcasses of crashed rigs piled up in the narrow canyon, sending up a column of caustic black smoke for three steady days.

Max approaches the wreckage on foot, having stashed the motor bike a click down the canyon, out of sight. The raiders were not visible, but they never were unless they meant to be. That did not mean they were not lurking in their mountains, watching him.

But there was guzzoline to be salvaged, and it was mad precious, mad shine. Max might siphon more than he'd ever need from the more intact wrecks, trade the rest for water and parts, keep running for as long as he might survive. 

He approaches the capsized war rig and even at a distance, it turns his stomach. The massive tanker's paneling had come lose, exposing the beams, the ribbing, like the skeleton of a monster from the old world.

He stops to inspect the busted cab of the war rig, laying on it's starboard side, the tanker jackknifed up the slope of the valley wall. The pilot and engine blocks are red with dune sand and charred by black smoke, the gaping skulls still scream out from the grille. They howl, in permanent pursuit of victims. Further down the valley pass the wreckage of the war party vehicles were overturned in the rubble. They piled up around the bend, some intact but abandoned, some destroyed. There are tire tracks leading away from the wreckage, the survivors having fled out of the canyon pass. It was smart of them. Max wonders if the raiders picked them off, or if any of the war party still hunted for them.

It was never going to drive again, the War Rig. Even if some overzealous buzzards jury-rigged a crane to right the chassis, the axles were in pieces and the engine blocks were shattered. More likely, it would lay here for years, picked over by generations of buzzards until only it's weathered hull remained and it became some new road warrior's legend. The ruins of someone else.

Nearer by the wreck the pale white body of a War Boy lays on its side in the sand, arms thrown over the head, covering its face. Gnarled, shiny scars intersect over its chest in the image of a V8 engine. Max tilts his head to inspect it, eyes following the lines of the limbs, purple and yellow with bruises. The right wrist is locked in a metal cuff. Around the left, a wound bolt of white muslin. Max jogs over and drops to his knees, turning the body on its back. With his bandaged hand, he traces the cylinders of the scarified engine carefully. Nux's engine. 

Then, half-buried in the red sand, Nux's chest heaves to life with a gasp. The V8 on his skin starts pumping.

Max jumps, heart in his throat. He's halfway to bolting with his hand reaching down to his sawn-off shotgun strapped to his leg. Dead things coming to life is never good. Always a bad thing. 

But the boy chokes and draws another rasping breath, very much alive despite appearances. He gasps, throat parched, choking on the gritty desert air. His eyes water and he blinks against the light. When Nux sees him, it's like a cold wind sweeping over Max, displacing all the air in his lungs. Nux breathes hard and shallow, his whole body slumping flat. The scars on his mouth crack and well with blood as his smiles, squinting against the desert sun. He inhales again, with great effort, and lifts his cuffed hand towards Max's face.

"My feral," he croaks. 

If he tries to say more, Max does not hear it. He wastes not a second hooking his hand under Nux's arms and hoisting the boy's body across his shoulders and starts back across the sand. His bad leg protests but he keeps steady. It's startling; Nux weighs nothing at all. Time to get moving. Too much longer and the ghosts will be hungry for him. Max can hear them already, laughing at him from down the canyon, echoing off the walls. Engines are starting in the distance. War parties and gangs of dead raiders will be coming. They're closing in. Soon, they will be impossible to outrun.

Time to go.

With Max's shoulder in his gut, Nux opens his mouth, twice, trying to get the hang of words again. "Running on fumes, feral. Empty. Empty." 

Even all hollow and crashed, weighing lighter than nothing, the War Boy never shuts up. Patches of the white chalk clay have been washed off by the sands and he's still paler than death, rasping like a drowning man, back in the old world when men still drowned.

"Better to go," Nux mutters by his head, dazed. "Let me go. I'll be fine. I'm taken to Valhalla."

Max offers no response as he trudges towards his bike, nestled out of sight between a weathered boulder and the canyon wall. Even in the brief hour he's been stopped, the dry wind has blow up tiny dunes against the tires and over the seat. He seats Nux onto the back and hauls his leg over the saddle before climbing on in front of him.

"You," Max pulls Nux's hands around either side of him, "You hang on. Tight."

Nux shudders and slumps unresponsive against Max's back, entirely slack.

"Hey!" Max croaks turning astride the bike, tapping Nux's cheek. "No. None of that."

He grips Nux's wrists around his waist in one hand and opens the throttle with the other before kick starting the bike to life. The engine sputters and ignites with a crack. The War Boy flinches as the motor roars awake beneath them, vibrating the bike like a living animal. He grips Max's jacket with all the strength he can summon.

They've pressed their luck in the raiders' mountains long enough. And this is such luck, Max has had. One of the dead sent back to him. He aims the bike westward and whips the rear fender over the gravel, kicking up a curtain of red sand. He guns out of the pass, clutching the last living War Boy.

The bike is light, but sturdy, with a nervy engine that flies them over the dust. Even though Max won't let it loose, not totally. The terrain is rough and still unfamiliar to him. He keeps a tight grip on the throttle. It's been riding two hours of hard riding before Max pulls the bike to a stop in the shadow of a red rock outcropping. They haven't made good time. In the evening light it seems like they still have leagues and leagues to go before they'll be out of the wastes. Nux fades in and out of consciousness, coming too close to losing his grasp too often and Max cannot bring himself to edge the engine over thirty clicks for fear that the War Boy will slip away.

The mighty silhouette of the Citadel has grown thick on the far horizon. They won't make it by sundown. That is fine. They're close enough to the road, hidden. He kills the engine and pulls Furiosa's goggles from his head.

He kneels in the sand next to the bike, sliding Nux gently down off of the seat. The War Boy hits the ground limp like a doll, head lolled to one side where Max leaves him. The sight turns Max's stomach, and sets a cold dread through him. He leans over and places an ear to Nux's scared chest, listening for his heart, his breathing. He hums in disapproval. Working one handed, he retrieves a small vile of wood alcohol and coats his arm and Nux's wrist. Not pretty but it will do. He unravels the IV tubing, holding out his bad arm and hooking the large needle into his median vein. The wound stings worse than fire, but his blood was forthcoming, running the length of the tubing, scattering all the air bubbles, tiny potential embolisms. Max watches them go.

"Take. Take," Max is growling, lowly, to himself. "Take take take take take."

Once all the air is chased out, Max hooks the other end of the line into the back of Nux's hand. It takes a few tries. The War Boy's veins are flat from thirst and Max is clumsy with one crushed hand. By the time Max lands a vein successfully, Nux has slipped back under.

That's fine. He's breathing. Max splays his hand over his chest to be sure. Yup, breathing. His heart pumping. Dissatisfied, Max prods at the boy's ribs, lightly at first, then more deliberately, in case the bones are lying to him. He tests the joints, flexing each one, takes count of the boy's fingers and toes. It's better than he expected, for a roll as bad as the war rig had done. Nothing lost, nothing broke, at least that he can tell. Many cuts, friction burns, many bruises, some dark and deep, blooming up Nux's back and arms. But all survivable, Max was sure, even for a half-life.

Around them, the landscape was quiet aside from Nux's occasional rattling breath. Max doesn't trust it, but their little camp is well enough hidden. They weren't followed, and no one should be scouting out this way. Not anymore. But the desert makes men nervous and he cannot let himself lose his wits now. The sun is low, low in the sky. Long shadows, make it hard to see far. Too low to get back. But too far to chase. The raiders didn't come this far out of the mountains. Open spaces made them anxious.

The long shadows are slowly becoming dusk, growing and joining like pools, putting in a chill on the air. Nux's body shivers on the ground. Max pulls Furiosa's folded blanket from one of the rear fender panniers, the one she'd received from the Vuvalini, old wool, rough and warm. Carefully, he drapes it over the twitchy War Boy, tucking the edges under his body. The desert nights are mad cold and they hardly have enough blood between them. Nux mumbles and curls in on himself, his bare feet sticking out from under the frayed hem. 

Still worried, Max leans over and touches the boy's head, his lips. Cold like stone, like a dead engine. It was a long dry night, nothing but rocks and moonlight in every direction. 

Satisfied that Nux will live through the night, Max leans against the rear wheel of the bike, a respectable distance from the cooling engine. Knee bent, he holds out his pierced arm, slowly curling and uncurling his smashed hand into a fist. Lucky, really, that it had been his left hand. Crushing his shooting hand like that may have done him in. The two crushed fingers might never work the same, but he'd still be a respectable shot once they healed, hopefully. 

Nux starts to stir more as the hours tick by, regaining some colour. From time to time he mumbles quiet nonsense, curling tightly around his knees and clutching the blanket but otherwise sleeps soundly. Max doesn't sleep, or, at least, does not mean too but every few minutes he blinks awake and the moon and skipped ahead slightly in the sky. They're both so exhausted. He is bad at keeping watch.

They are the only living things for a day's ride in any direction. A half-life and a full-life, attached at the wrists. Together they level out to something slightly less than one whole life.

Max grimaces. Those are poor odds.

Nux comes around before midnight. He tries to sit up but promptly faints against the sand before Max can stop him. Tisking, Max crowds over him and urges him slowly back upright, offering him water from a canteen. Apparently unaware until that moment that he had been thirsty, Nux snatches it and drinks frantically until he chokes, water rolling down his chin. When Max pulls it away, Nux flops back onto the sand. 

He stares quietly up at the stars before asking, "Did they make it?"

"Mmhmm."

"Are we dead?"

"No."

Nux swallows and says nothing else. Slowly, he raises his arms off the sand, letting his hands roam over his face, neck, chest, checking injuries, sore spots. He holds his arm up over his face and inspects the IV in the back of his hand, eyes following the line to Max and back.

Max reaches out his leg, nudging the War Boy's bare foot with the toe of his boot. "Go to sleep."

Oddly, Nux chuckles. It's disturbing. Max pretends not to notice.

"I'll never sleep again, Blood Bag. Run too hot with that blood of yours in me. Too hot to sleep."

Nux rolls slowly onto his front, groaning in pain. Bones creak and tendons pop. He pauses, catching himself hunched over and hanging his head as the ringing in his ears crescendos. When he can bear to move again, he stretches his long body out, propping himself up on his forearms.

"Hi-octane, you are. My feral." Nux says, and despite the words he is calm and even. He shakes, skin and red bruises rippling over his ridges of his shoulder blades. "You're my radiator. Keep me cool, keep me from burning up. We can never be apart."

Crawling on his elbows, Nux pulls himself flush up next to Max and the bike, laying his head in the feral's lap. "Feel like fire, you do, like molten chrome."

Nux reaches up and pets affectionately at Max's hair with his cuffed hand. Max offers a mistrustful look in return.

"Tell me your name, Blood Bag?"

"Max."

"Max!" Nux cries, hoarsely. "Shine name. Old world name. King's name. Max. Max. Imperator Max! My feral Imperator!"

Max throws his bandaged hand over Nux's mouth to silence him with an accompanying stern glare. Nux's constant giddiness unnerves him, especially just barely alive, out in hostile wastes. It's exhausting.

The War Boy's lips are hatched with scars, cool and dry, like a lizard's skin. His big moon blue eyes, still rimmed with soot and axle grease, are staring back at Max over his hand like headlights. Curious-looking thing, he was. Skittish and excitable with those wicked scars and long limbs, his blueish-white skin betraying the sickness in his body.

Under his hand, Nux settles at last. He gets it. Two battered wanderers cannot draw attention to themselves in the wastes. 

Max nods, satisfied, and pulls his hand away from Nux's face. He holds his arm up over the bike's handlebar, draping the IV tubing out of the way. Nux blinks and licks his lips, an odd thing to see him do and let's his head fall to the left, facing away from Max and out over the dark sandy wastes beyond.

"'Course," Nux continues, "suppose maybe Imperator Furiosa will be the Immortan now. Immortan Furiosa."

Max huffs, loudly. Nux shudders.

"Scary rusted thought, isn't it. _Immortan Furiosa_."

"Hush," insists Max, making his point felt by tugging the cuff on Nux's wrist. "Sleep."

Nux's palm comes to a rest on Max's extended leg--the braced one. The War Boy stares, fascinated, at the cannula piercing the back of his hand.

"The stuff you got," Nux says softly without looking away, "It's more precious than any treasures, any guzzoline or rig or water. Makes a weak thing strong. Keeps a dead thing living."

After that, Nux doesn't say anything else for a while and all there is to hear is the winds carrying over the sand, along the open plain. Max thinks Nux might have fallen back asleep until the War Boy rolls over onto his back again to stare right up at Max's face.

"Maybe that's why I'm not awaited in Valhalla. Maybe your hi-octane blood is too good at keeping me flesh."

Max suspects it's unlikely. 

But he doesn't say anything. Nux looks up at him imploringly for a few more beats in silence before he curls up next to the bike, and commits to sleep, resting his head on Max's leg. They're alone. Days and days alone, in every direction. To the north are the mighty buttes of the Citadel, smoking against the night sky, somehow feeling much further away then they had in the daylight. In the opposite direction, the oil wells of Gas Town blaze, a tiny but fierce glowing flame on the dark horizon.

No engines to be heard. Max has made a point to listen for them.

The night folds around them, dark and indigo and very quiet. A periodic wind gallops through desert, more felt than heard. It comes down from the mountains, shaping the low dunes. The breeze churns around them, cool and dry. It's almost peaceful. If only simple things brought peace.

Nux holds Max's hand in his own. The cannulae aligned side by side, the IV tubing leaving one's hand and looping about their knees a few times before arriving slightly next of the where it started. If he concentrates, Max can count the rhythm of Nux's heartbeat fluttering at the other end of the line. He looks down at Nux's pale bruising back and shoulders glowing blue in the moonlight. Nux hasn't complained once about the pain. 

It unsettles him, Max must admit. What had been so savage and brutal to him five days prior now seemed totally docile, delicate. A sick boy, he was, dying very slowly. Perhaps that is the only way to stand such a slow-motion death, to rally and chase it down for yourself. All the violence and the carnage was a strike against a world that murdered you long before you were ever born. 

Taking his free hand, Max cups the curve of Nux's neck, pressing his thumb lightly over the wicked brand at the base of his nape. Nux's breathing halts sharply and he buries his face in Max's knee with a small whimper.

"Cut it out," Nux growls, all vicious again without warning.

Max had thought him asleep, but lets his hand drop away.

"No!" the War Boy flails and reaches around for Max's wrist, tugging it over his shoulder, "do it. Cut it out of me. Carve it. Carve, carve, carve it! I want it gone. Gone!"

His frenzy is a weak one, and Nux wouldn't have the energy to overpower Max at full strength, but some crazed intensity wakes up deep in the War Boy's battered body as Max's hand brushes the edge of the brand. Suddenly, Nux is about to crawl out of his skin, tearing at his own neck with both hands, trying to claw out his scars and trembling with rage or heartache or something, Max doesn't know what. 

"Cut it out, _cut it out!_ I want it gone."

Max snatches Nux's wrists before he can manage to draw blood and pins them behind his head, at the back of his neck, holding the thrashing War Boy down over his extended knee, his elbows up over his head. With his arms immobilized, Nux kicks and snarls, trying to pull free, rolling against Max's grip but it doesn't budge. With a little struggle, Max manages to keep the War Boy held tight in his lap. Nux thrashes again and sand rains into Max's hair. In desperation, Nux bares his teeth and howls but Max is unmoved.

"Get off me!" Nux screams.

Max hums and leans onto Nux's chest with his other arm.

He roars again, "Get off!" 

Nux manages to gain some purchase under his feet and strains up against Max's hold but it's futile. He is weak from the days hot on the road, from the chases and from war. Max has him beat, plainly, but admitting defeat is not in the nature of the War Boys. Death is more appealing than disgrace. Death is more appealing than most things, to a War Boy.

For a moment, he and Max stare at each other, breathing hard, evidently at a stalemate. 

"Say something!" 

Max stares him down hard. "No."

Nux rages, ashamed, and yanks his head away. "You stupid fucking feral."

At last, he gives up, going slack over Max's legs. He exhales, staggering, on the brink of tears, seething with anger. He refuses to look back at Max, keeping his neck craned obstinately toward the open wastes. With his arms wrenched behind his head, the boy's narrow chest looks all the more sickly, thin in the ribs, prominent collar bones, bright scar tissues wrapping over his rib cage. They had seemed so terrible surging over the dunes, chasing him down, lurking in the shadows of the Citadel caves. He had feared them, with their barking voices and rough hands on him. Now, Nux looks as menacing as a sick dog. Even so, Max is cautious, and doesn't release his grip. 

"Soft," Nux gasps, like the word pains him, like it's the worst thing he could say. "Fucking _soft._ They would all laugh if they knew. Laugh! A mediocre death. A wretched death. No death at all. "

"You'll get no death at all, at this rate," Max observes in his low, guarded voice. 

Nux only sobs in response.

It's confusing to Max that Nux is not thrilled at the notion of escaping death a while longer. The cult of the War Boys confounds him. 

But despite all his efforts, Max is not heartless. In the wastes, everyone is so accustomed to loss, that it can be staggering to find out that you had something more to lose. Something so critical, it didn't even occur to you to live without it. Long after you thought you were done, the world comes calling again for it's due. The desert takes back everything, in the end.

Now, Nux has lost is only escape, his only victory in this short and brutal life. He killed his gods and his heaven would not have him. A long and graceless death was all that lay in store.

Curling low over him, taking his weight off the boy's chest, Max finally releases Nux's arms and urges him to sit up. Nux is scowling, rubbing tears off his cheeks, smearing the lampblack from his eyes as he does.

"Shh," Max soothes, scooting to face the boy. "Come here."

He takes his IV'd hand, the right one, and draws it around Nux's head, holding the back of his bare scalp. Nux looks up at him nervously, eyes so blue Max would swear they were water.

"Put yours," he takes the War Boy's wrist, careful of the transfusion line sticking out the back of it, and places it on the back of his head, "here."

Nux does as instructed, holding the back of Max's head cautiously. After a moment, he scratches curiously at the short hair there, making a pleased noise as he does. The transfusion line crosses between them in a bright red diagonal, right hand to right hand.

Pulling gently, Max presses their brows together.

Nux's eyes slide shut and he exhales softly, sighing a little. Max watches him. He could feel the tension unwind from Nux's body in a physical shudder, from the back of his neck down his shoulders and arms to the fingertips on the back of Max's head. At this closeness, the boy seems small, quiet, killable. He doubts Nux has ever been so still in his whole life. It's grounding. To be so close to another person without violence. Months in the Citadel had kept him muzzled and caged, struck and beaten, barely fed, never washed, cowering at every voice, inked and bled. He'd forgotten how to talk, forgotten his own name, for a while. 

Being alone, it makes you forget, makes you doubt yourself. With no one to see you, you start questioning whether any of it was real. Did it all really happen the way you remember it? Did you really live at all? No wonder, really, that the War Boys were so afraid to die with no one to witness.

Max breathes deeply, shoving it all away, reigning in the ghosts before they overpower him. He strokes his thumb behind Nux's ear, crumbling the clay dust off his skin as he does. Nux is cool against him. The boy leans into the touch, shuddering a little, eyelids quivering but not daring to open them. He can't look, not this close, he might lose his nerve. 

Rallying that nerve, Nux pushes forward on his knees and kisses him. It's clumsy and sudden, and he bumps his nose into Max's cheek. Such a gentle thing from such a wild boy, it confuses Max more than it really startles him. Nux's scored mouth is hesitant and yielding against Max's lips, stalling, not sure what to do. He's gone into this with no plan. Typical.

Max lets him, easing his hand down from Nux's scalp. After an awkward second of improvisation he rests it on the curve of Nux's neck. Anything to telegraph non aggression. 

It's odd, the boy's scars, his gawkiness, the smell of kaolin clay and heady guzzoline fumes and smoke. And despite himself, Max can't quite think of a reason to stop him. He's so eager and anxious. Nux's hand tightened on Max's short hair, scratching for some purchase. Max can feel him shaking, a battered ball of nerves and it pricks something in his heart, a compassion, an empathy, for being so alone in the world that you would cling to the nearest living thing with all your might. Nux's hand slides over the nape of Max's neck, shooting pleasant sparks down his spine. Those long fingers wind their way into the collar of Max's jacket and he tugs, more frantic now, desperate to fish some kind of approval out of him.

They break away when Nux pulls him forward, sharply, over top of him as he lays flat on his back. Max hovers over him on his elbows and knees, watching the War Boy's body unravel. Nux keeps a tight grip on Max's collar, running his free hand frantically over his back, keeping him close, as if worried he may bolt and be gone forever if he lets go for even a moment.

"Easy, easy," Max warns, easing over Nux like he's a spooked animal, too scared to know it's hurt. "Easy. Keep your hand--"

"Shut up," Nux heads him off. "Don't start talking now." 

Just in case Max tries it, Nux kisses him again. He's better at it this time, a natural. Eager and rough, demanding and greedy. His hands drop away from the back of Max's head and sneak inside his jacket, touching his chest and ribs. There's no mistaking the War Boy's want and despite himself, it stirs something in Max to be touched like this, a warmth under his breastbone glowing like a campfire.

He's been alone for too long. It feels like years, like lifetimes. It's a devastating isolation, one man alone with the Accusing Dead, chasing him across the wastes. It was enough to drive the hardest man insane. How long has it been since he'd had a willing body beneath him? How long has it been since he was touched gently by anyone? Had there ever been a time, or was it another lie, another false memory of an older world. Max is no longer sure.

Fine then. Forget it. Max is sick of being alone. He takes Nux hard by the shoulders and pins him to the earth with a dominating kiss, sliding the War Boy's mouth open with roughness, staking a claim. Nux whines into his mouth with glee. He squirms against the sand, thrilled at finally edging a possessive reaction out of Max. He throws both arms around his neck and arches his back into Max's body, crowing happily.

Max writhes back down onto him, pressing him to the ground with the full weight of his body. The War Boy gasps, a breathy moaning sound. It ignites something in Max, a fierceness, a desperation, and he rolls his hips against the boy's in one slow, elongated movement. Nux cries out, and bites his knuckle to stifle himself.

It's dizzying, and powerful, and maybe very stupid. Mad stupid. But Max hasn't felt this powerful in a very long time, and he's reluctant to let it go. He kisses the boy again, kisses his mouth, his cheeks, his neck, sucking deep blue marks over abrasion burns and bruises. Each time he comes to a fresh scrape or wound, he licks it clean, kisses it gently, and presses it under his thumb, attending each of the War Boy's new battle scars. 

Beneath him, Nux whimpers and squirms in response, running his fingers through his short hair over and over, quicker each time. He's too keen, too needy, all kamakrazee agitation and single minded intensity. It's distracting, so Max grips both his hands by the wrist and pins them to the ground on either side of his head, commanding him to be still.

Nux gasps and doesn't fight. 

It turns Max wild again so quickly, grinding hard up against this warm, yielding body. It turns his blood hot and his heart tightens in his chest. Sweat beads on the back of his neck. He shakes his head.

Nux's face keeps slipping away in Max's vision. He tries to focus, but Nux keeps turning into someone else, the hatch marks on his mouth peel into a mad skeleton grin, the traces of lampblack and grease still on the tip of his nose, the sockets of his eyes, looking like death himself. It's a familiar face, the face of his ghosts, pursuing him in his waking hell. Nux's firm, wiry body under his hands with the voices of the Accusing Dead coming out of his mouth. The shades possess Nux's face like a mask, swapping his war-painted skull for a real one, cursing Max.

"Help us, Max," Nux cries beneath him in a child's voice. "Where were you, Max?"

He reels back onto his knees, flinging his bandaged hand over his brow as the vision dissolves. The slack on the IV line oscillates between them like a sound wave. Neither of them move for a moment, and the dark desert is suddenly quiet again. Nux props himself up on his elbows, mouth pink and panting softly, looking concerned.

"What's the matter?"

Max flinches, not trusting his own eyes.

"I can do you, if you like. Don't worry. I'll do it. No problem. Just don't--" Nux is reaching for his arm, the one with the IV in it, "Just don't-- don't stop us."

He winds the IV around his palm, pulling Max forward over him again, hushing and kissing the sides of his face. When the length is wrapped tight, he laces Max's fingers in his own, pressing them together to his chest. He slides his legs apart so they're bent on either side of Max's hips, bracketing Max tight to him. Hesitantly, he rolls his hips as Max had done, testing the effect. The friction melts him, unwinds him with no resistance. Nux is unpracticed at this but it doesn't matter, he's making an effort. 

Not a futile effort, either. They're both hard, very hard by now. Max can feel it through the War Boy's black canvas pants where he's grinding, all inexperienced and frantic but it does the trick. Their breath is coming fast and short. His vision tunnels and his head swims, like there's nitro in his brain. 

Max levers their clasped hands out from between their bodies, pinning them to the earth up over Nux's head. With his free hand Max works to unfasten the leather straps around Nux's waist, and the boy goes very still. His chest still heaves but he strains to keep calm, digging the heels of his boots into the sand. When Max looks up at his face as he pushes the waistband down around his hips, Nux's free hand is thrown over his face, hiding his eyes. He is biting hard into the scars on his lip, enough to break open the healing split. 

"Ah-ah, hey. Hey," Max urges, prying his hand away one finger at a time. "Hey, hey."

Only Nux's blue, blue eyes look back at him and no one else this time. He looks back at Max nervously, guilty, like he's been caught doing something very wrong. Max exhales, fondly, and touches Nux's face, running his thumb over the gnarled scar on his cheekbone, over the painted black hollows of his eyes. He touches their brows together again.

"Stop?" he asks.

"No," Nux breathes.

"Okay?"

Nux squeezes his eyes shut and nods quickly.

Clutching their IV'd hands together overhead, Max slips his good hand between them, wrapping it over Nux's cock. The War Boy gasps and goes tense as a wire beneath him, stuttering his hips. His brows furrow and it's almost comical, the confused, starstruck expression that he pulls. 

Max goes slow and loose at first, gentle, gauging Nux's reaction to each maneuver, the touch, the pressure. Every little move draws a jolt out of his bruised, wiry body. He's so sensitive, mad touchy, Max hardly has to grip at all, running his palm over the length of his cock in long, slow strokes. Slowly, he urges Nux to rock his hips in rhythm. The boy makes tiny, gasping noises and rolls his body in time. It occurs to him, vaguely, that perhaps Nux has never done this before. But in fairness, he's not sure, not really, if he himself has ever done this before either.

He clutches their joined hands, squeezing the red transfusion tubing between their palms. One way or another, Max was going to see them through. 

Emboldened, he tightens his grip and quickens his pace and it rips a curse out of the War Boy. 

"Glory!" Nux croaks, raking his fingernails over Max's scalp. "Glory, Maxy!"

It trips a wire down Max's spine, pricking over his skin, and he growls appreciatively, stroking harder.

Nux's body roils as Max kisses the clay down the scars of his chest. They're old scars, numb, but the flesh around them is tender like a fresh burn, dry like paper. With his tongue, Max traces the line of a cylinder and Nux's spine arcs clear off the sand, wrapping his arm around the back of Max's neck and holding him there. Daring, Max nips his teeth at the ridge of a scar and Nux yelps like an animal. Max smiles and does it again, feeling for the way Nux's heart stammers and pulls at his own on the far end of the transfusion line, pulsing warm between their hands. When Max pulls away, he licks white clay powder off his lips.

Beneath him Nux is writhing, muttering. Too low to hear clearly, but he growls in a vicious, barking tone. Small little nonsense words of approval, gratitude, direction all running together over his tongue in a feverish chant. Snapping his jaw, he gnaws at his lower lip and grinds against Max's hand shamelessly. 

The pain excites him, it seems. It spurs him to some darker craze and his movements lose their faltering hesitance. He grows bolder, urging Max to be firmer, harder. He throws his legs around Max's hips, locking his ankles together. A few of dried wounds break open and start to well blood on his flanks, but if anything it only encourages his frenzy. Like Nux wanted to be slit open, flayed, stripped and used for parts. He scratches and at his own skin with his free hand, writhing against Max, rapt in some violent ecstasy. The dark, animal voice in him, the War Boy part of his mind, it's thrilled by the hurt. There's glory in the hurt. There's glory in withstanding it. 

It's a little hysterical, rutting with some half-dead wild boy in the desert. Maybe Max has gone as feral and psychotic as they all say. 

Blood is welling from the bite on Nux's lip. Max stoops and licks it clean, tracing the hatched scars with the edge of his teeth. Nux moans, obscenely, straining against Max's grip on his pinned wrist. He's not talking anymore. The only sounds he makes are broken little moans in time with Max's strokes. He won't last another minute.

It's enough to drive Max savage. He grinds himself against the boy's hip through his own pants, and it's not much but it's enough to make his vision tunnel and his head light. Without thinking, Max's leans in and gnaws at Nux's collarbone. It shocks Nux. The boy cries out and jerks but Max maintains his vice grip on his shoulder. He doesn't have the presence of mind to be kind, to be soft and tender as he should be. Nothing in the whole world is soft and tender, anymore. And so neither is Max.

Something predatory comes over him, and Max indulges. He rakes his teeth over Nux's throat and drags his hand firmly over his cock, squeezing, and that's the end of it. The War Boy comes over his hand, gaping breathlessly. His hand twists in Max's jacket and the cords of his neck tense, eyes sliding shut. He braces for a beat, two, then slumps back into the sand, totally spent. The V8 on his chest heaves up and down. 

They sag together, flanks heaving, wired and expended. Max is careful as Nux surfaces out of it. He shifts his weight from on top of Nux, propping himself up on his elbow, carefully releasing his cock. Nux is utterly wrecked beneath him, trembling, flushed, and willowy. A gleam of sweat had worked up under the white clay on his skin and sand is sticking to the backs of his arms. 

Max wipes his hand clean in the sand and wraps himself gently over Nux's bare chest, humming softly.

Still thrown over their heads, right hand to right hand, the red IV line winds around their palms, fingers interlaced tightly, hanging on for dear life. Neither of them release, not yet. They'll have to soon enough. Resting his cheek on Nux's breastbone, Max can feel the boy's heartbeat thundering through his ribs, stronger now than anything. 

Neither of them speak for a moment, and the quiet of the night folds in around them again, entangled in the wasteland. Eventually, their breathing evens out, their wits resurface, they fade out of their satiated fog. Minutes by minute, the ache starts to return to Nux's body, the pain no longer the blissful kind. He shifts uncomfortably beneath his feral.

"Are you alright?" Max finally asks against Nux's collar bone.

Above his head, Nux only nods at first, having not totally regained the ability of language. He lays his hand over Max's shoulder, patting at this hair. "Fine. I'm fine. Shiny."

He pauses, and sighs with a tremble. 

Nux pets his feral's head. "Just strange," he adds distantly.

"Strange?" Max echoes. 

"Yeah. Strange. New thing. Good thing, but new. Slit and I never--"

Too late, the War Boy realizes what he's saying and chokes back the rest of the thought. Max remembers Slit, his vicious, lunatic smile and devastating aim, surging after them over the wastes from the hood of his ravaged Interceptor. Now, in his sick brain, the image is so perfect. He can see Slit perched on top of Nux, snarling with the same wicked face, holding the boy down by the throat possessively, doing _something_ , something unlike what he had done to Nux.

Max huffs and recalls, happily, that Slit is dead.

The War Boy swallows, pale face flushed in shame. He chews the inside of his cheek and his eyes get distant as he seems, for the first time, to comprehend the magnitude of his loss. The chase and been too insane, too loud and too kamikrazee to hold onto a thought for too long. That was how the War Boys lived, and that was how they died. Death was only a transition to a grander second life. 

But no longer for Nux. His home was gone. His heaven was gone. His brothers. His vehicle. Everything that made Nux's half-life worth the pain was gone forever. 

Max watches his face cautiously. It is dangerous, he knows, to disturb someone coming to grips with a staggering truth. 

He snaps from his brooding when Max shifts on top of him. His blue eyes go wide as he strikes upon some harebrained idea. A sort of amends, from the looks of it. Nux makes a sincere but fatally uncoordinated attempt to undo Max's belt. Max only hums softly and pushes his hand away.

Nux looks up at him in question. "What about you?"

"Hush, hush. It's fine." Max presses his bandaged hand to the War Boy's lips to silence any argument.

He wants to protest, but Nux knows better. He nods and takes his hand back. 

At last, Max sits up on his knees, tugging Nux's cuffed wrist into his lap. With great focus and care, he unwinds the IV from around Nux's hand before slipping the hooked needle out of his vein. A drop of blood wells up from the puncture and Max kisses it away, holding pressure to it with his thumb. He takes the other end out of his own arm and winds up the tubing. Nux watches, quiet for once. When Max let's go, he inspects his hand, looking it over front and back. He makes a fist, flexes his fingers. Everything accounted for.

Max slides off of Nux's hips and stretches next to him in the sand, content. They've wasted enough rest. He bends his good leg and extends the braced one, curving his body to fit snugly against Nux. He's a good two hands shorter than the War Boy, and he tucks himself into the crook of his lanky arm easily. Before settling, he reaches across his body and snatches Furiosa's discarded blanket and pulls it over both of them.

"Sleep," Max says, throwing an arm over the boy's chest. "We move at first light."

Nux doesn't reply. He only nuzzles against Max's hair, grasping the hem of his jacket for a few minutes before finally ceding to sleep.

Hours later, before the sun breaks, when the predawn light turns the desert an unsettling lilac blue they're already breaking camp. Nux is perched on the back of the bike, wrapped tight in Furiosa's blanket, nibbling at his fingernails. He's been quiet all night, lost in thought, staring off at the faraway Citadel slowly coming into relief on the horizon. Max is scurrying about, rationing their supplies, taking stock of their water, and sweeping their tracks in preparation for leaving.

The cool air and dim twilight belies the approaching morning sun and heat. There is even dew collecting in the shadow of their little shelter, clinging to the delicate film of dust over the rocks. Better to be on the road before sunup, before the punishing heat and gritty winds.

"I don't want to go back." Nux croaks, softly, and Max isn't sure he's heard him.

"Hmm?" 

Nux doesn't look at him. His eyes stay fixed on the purpling buttes in the distance. "I don't want to go back," he repeats. "To the Citadel. I don't want to go back."

Max nods, slowly, "Alright."

The breeze kicks up, tugging at the bolt of white muslin that's come loose around Nux's wrist. Scowling, he secures the free tail end of it back into place and tucks his arm under the blanket, safely out of the wind.

"They think I died, yeah? They all saw. They all saw me. And they're safe. They're all safe now." His voice is hesitant, eyes flickering to the horizon and back. "Going back... it would ruin all that, going back."

That's alright. Max doesn't think he could face them, either.

You don't go near your ghosts, not if you can help it. You'll go to the end of the world, to the briny, undrinkable sea, the hot sky and beyond to outpace them. You'll kill your engine, murder your thirst, go days and days without sleep if it means staying ahead. Your ghosts will chase you. They will never stop. They will chase you until they catch you, and you are a ghost yourself. You survived right up until you couldn't. 

He looks back to the dim campsite. A pale light is glowing on the horizon, in the direction they came from, turning the rust red desert a hazy blue. It looked nothing like the real world. Their canisters of guzzoline and water were lined up in a neat row by the rock, ready to be strapped by to the bike. Max had counted them half a dozen times already. Next to them, the patterns in the sand where he and Nux had lain the night before, the evidence of what they'd done, were all carefully swept away. By midday, the wind would whisk all the sand over the desert, endlessly combining and recombining the landscape into new dunes. It would be as if they were never there. 

Max dusts off his hands, and shrugs into his jacket. Time to go. 

He hefts the canisters back to the bike, securing them to the panniers and taking count again. It's all there. All the more precious. Mad precious, if they aren't going back. He circles around the bike to where Nux is crouched on the rear fender, deliberately coming between the boy and his eyeline of the Citadel. Nux fidgets and averts his gaze, tugging the edge of the blanket over his nose. It's such an odd gesture, for a War Boy to be ashamed. It twists something under Max's ribs.

With his bandaged knuckles, Max traces the knotted scar over Nux's cheekbone, light and gentle. It's still a new thing, gentleness. That gets Nux's attention, and his blue eyes snap to Max's hand. In the rosy predawn light, he's white as bone, warithlike. Cloaked in the blanket, the hollows of his cheeks are sharp and pallid.

Max wraps his right hand on the back of Nux's neck, and he bends to touch their foreheads together again. They breathe quietly for a moment, before Max stands and kisses the top of his head.

He climbs aboard and kick starts the engine. The rumble shatters the morning silence, echoing off the desert rock, rattling their chests. Nux's arms snake out from the cloak, gripping tight around Max's waist. Max guns the throttle and the bike lurches forward, aimed away from the road, the mountains, headed somewhere else entirely.


End file.
